Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve. I love the anticipation. I love the family togetherness. I love the focus on Christ. This is our first year celebrating Christmas as our own little family. We have always celebrated with extended family in the past. Though we miss them, it has been a wonderful opportunity to create our own memories and traditions. We spent quite a bit of time planning how we wanted a Mackrory Christmas celebration to look. We melded things from each of our families and integrated other ideas as well. So far it has been wonderful. Today we enjoyed working together to make dinner, wrapping gifts, and last minute shopping. Then we had our Christmas Eve dinner and festivities. So wonderful. It was so nice to just be together. Now to the fun preparation for tomorrow (once Brielle has fallen asleep.)

Everyone VERY ready for dinner. We were supposed to eat at 2:30 and the lamb wasn't ready until 3:30.

Christmas crackers

Pears...sugar sprinkled
Mom and Dad

Lamb, peas, carrots, potatoes and MINT SAUCE! Yum.

Mmm. Sugar sprinkles.

Mmm. More sugar sprinkles.

Sweet, loving Mary and her baby.And a handsome Joseph. Opening our one Christmas Eve gift.

"BUGS!!! Pajamas with a zipper and BUGS!" (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa)"Flowers! I love flowers!"

Happy sibling hugs.

From Nathan

When I got home from activity days tonight Jared mentioned Nathan had written his name all by himself. Jared had just reminded him verbally what each letter looked like (i.e. "N goes up, down, up"). I was impressed. I know he can do it, but he has to want to and he doesn't "want to" very often. I didn't think much more about it until I was straightening up the living room and found where he wrote it:He even got the "To Mom" on there!

For some reason it really touched me, bringing tears to my eyes.

Nathan has been going through what his Aunt Michelle called a "rough patch" the last few weeks and has been keeping me on my toes. Maybe that fact brought the tears a little more readily. I don't know.

But, I DO know, I sure love this boy..."rough patch" and all.

(The picture Nathan wanted me to take of him during Brielle's show today)

Pics for Grandma

Here is Jacob all bundled up for his first sled ride down the little hill in our backyard. Isn't he cute?!?

Brielle had her Christmas program today. She was a cow in the story of the gingerbread Man. "Mooo. Stop little gingerbread boy. I want to eat you." She did a fantastic job on her line and singing the fun Christmas songs at the end. She is a little performer. Great job Bre.

Visiting with Santa

Even Better

Brielle cried the whole way home from my last ultrasound, lamenting the fact that the baby was a boy and not a girl.

Today she was playing with Jacob and making him laugh. She looked up at me and said, "This is even better than a girl!"

Elijah - Revised

Last night for FHE we acted out the story of Elijah and the widow in an effort to teach the importance of giving. First Jared and I reenacted the story and then it was the kids' turn. First Brielle wanted to be the "mom" and Nathan wanted to be the prophet. They did a great job. When the widow's son died Brielle's eyes filled with tears--real tears which she quietly wiped away--as she mourned the loss of her son. Touched, I looked over at Elijah to prompt him to give the son a healing blessing. His eyes were filled with tears too. How blessed I am to be able to learn from their sweetness and compassion.

After take 2, Brielle wanted to be the prophet and Nathan wanted to be the mom. As his son, I told Nathan how very hungry I was. Seeing the Prophet Elijah approaching, he announced "I make TWO fires!" which he promptly did and gave both Elijah and I a cake, keeping none for himself. Elijah responded by breaking her cake in two and sharing with the widow.

I don't think they needed a lesson on the topic we chose, but we sure got one.

Home Tour

Since we have been in our home for almost a month now, I figured I should probably give you the promised tour. These are pictures I took before we moved it. It looks a little more lived in now. :)

As you enter from the garage, this is what you see: The 1st door on the left goes into our "walk-through pantry" (Jared's creation to make it easier to get groceries to the pantry shelves and the fridge). Then there is a large storage closet next on the left. The 1st door on the right leads into the laundry room. Then there is our mud room area, then a powder room. At the end of the hall is my desk.

Here is one side of the laundry room. The opposite wall has the washer and dryer with a shelf and pole above it.
Our "mud room" area

Here is the powder room (it is HARD to get a good picture of a room...at least for inexperienced me)

And my desk area. I really wanted my computer right off of the kitchen and living space rather than tucked in a corner somewhere as it has been the last few places we have lived. I am loving having this space!

(Just to the left of the desk is an arched entrence into the kitchen)

Our kitchen

Some favorite features are the 2 pantries, the 2 level bar, and the under-cabinet lighting. We also love our granite. We went on a wild goose chase to get it, but found some in Chicago. It is called Toffee Classic and is all browns which was hard to find. We also changed our kitchen floors at the last minute (cancelled the install of the lighter wood at 10 pm the night before install). We are really happy with the darker floor.
Here is the range wall. We really like how the backsplash turned out.

The shelving in the walk-through pantry

View from kitchen into living and dining areas

View into the dining room...in the day time those windows offer possibly my favorite feature of the house, a beautiful view of trees, farmland and beautiful sky...with a red barn in the distance. Aaaah. I love Wisconsin.

View into the great room from the dining room
The foyer and staircase (with Mom holding Baby Jacob). We have couches for you to sit on now Mom. Hooray.

(The hallway to the 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms is to the right of the foyer)

Foyer and hall closet. I love having the transom window above the door to let in more light.

View of the great room from the front door.

Downstairs...the only thing that is finished down there is the bathroom. Jared will finish the rest over the next year or so. He loves having a project and did a great job on our old home, but we never finished the bathroom there because he didn't feel comfortable taking that on. So, we did the bathroom first this time. Pretty soon we will have ample room for visitors...hint, hint. :) And you don't need to wait until the basement is finished. The kids are glad to share their rooms.

The main bathroom with space to do hair (put curling irons etc) instead of a dual vanity. The cabinet was the best medicine cabinet we could come up with. For some reason they were really hard to find.

View of the bath as well

The master bath vanity

From the vanity area there is an arched entrance into the shower and toilet area...

Master bedroom (at least half of it). The window is my favorite feature...especially at night as we go to sleep. I feel like I am camping under the stars. The trey ceiling is a new thing out here in Wisconsin. We didn't like them at first, but it has grown on us. The walk-in closet is on the right as you enter the room.

There are 2 other bedrooms upstairs, but it was hard to get a picture that showed anything so you just get to hear about it.

And that completes the tour. Now you can come and see it for yourself.

We are LOVING living here. The longer we are here, the more settled we become and the more I love it.

Okay, quick update. Here are some pictures I just ran and took.

Our living room with couches. Hooray. It is amazing how living without something for 5 months (especially during the last stages of pregnancy) makes you appreciate it so much more when you get it. We still have a lot of decorating to do, but we were able to find a few autumn decorations to spruce things up until we can get everything the way we want it.View from foyer (please don't mind the pink streamers...we had Brielle's princess birthday party today. I will get that blogged sometime).Front view of the couchesWe have a few decorations for our foyer.And my beloved desk. :) Everything is right here...thank you cards, files, phone, crafting supplies, writing utinsels, paper, a printer...everything. I am used to having to run from one end of the house to the other to get things that I need to get paperwork stuff done. Not anymore. Aaah.